[mythtv-users] Another commercial MythTV box

Nick Rout nick at rout.co.nz
Fri Jul 1 00:30:28 EDT 2005


On Thu, 30 Jun 2005 23:05:15 -0400
Dewey Smolka wrote:

> > 
> > > > If I buy one of these devices and then use it in my home, that appears
> > > > to me to be non-commercial use. As far as zap2it.com is concerned it
> > > > places no greater load than if i brewed my own mythbox.
> > > >
> > > > IMHO commercial use would be, say, downloading information from
> > > > zap2it.com and re-selling it.
> > >
> > > Your HO is flat out 100% wrong.
> > 
> > Explain? Actually I was only commenting on the previous poster's post,
> > and he referred to the "commercial" use. How is it commercial use for me to access the service?
> 
> Nobody is talking about you accessing the service. The commercial part
> comes when a company sells Myth boxes with a promise of program data
> without monthly fees. It's not exactly copying and reselling
> labs.zap2it data, but it's pretty close.
> 
> A PVR is pretty much worthless without program data (note, this is
> only about the TV recording capabilities of Myth, not the
> music/video/weather/etc features). If I start selling Myth boxes (or
> worse, closed and rebranded Myth boxes) with the understanding, either
> implicit or explicit, that the program data is free, then I am
> defrauding the customer because I have no control over the data and
> cannot gurantee its availability, and violating the agreement with
> zap2it because I don't have the right to use their data for commercial
> purposes.
> 
> It's not about reselling zap2it's free service, which would get you
> hot water very quickly. It's about using zap2it's free service as a
> selling point for a decidedly commercial venture -- selling hardware
> that runs MythTV (or a closed, rebranded MythTV that violates the
> GPL).
> 
> That is why your HO is 100% wrong.
> 
> We here are very fortunate to have zap2it provide listings for us for
> free -- without program data there would be far fewer people using
> Myth, and far less development at a much slower pace. We would like to
> continue to recieve zap2it data, and therefore do not like it when
> people do things that threaten this service (let alone when they try
> to rip the GPL out of Myth).
> 
> We are also very fortunate to have a commercial venture called LxM
> which provides listings and other value-added services for MythTV for
> a very reasonable price, and which respects the open foundation upon
> which MythTV was built, as well as expressly giving back to the
> further development of the project.
> 
> The moral of the story is that if you sell Myth boxes, it is a
> commercial venture. If it is a commercial venture the seller cannot
> give away zap2it's data, but can and should steer the customer to LxM,
> which also provides data. This also means that the commercial venture
> contributes back to community at least indirectly through LxM
> subscriptions, and hopefully directly, since anyone selling them
> surely has some ideas how to improve Myth and the time to do so,
> especially because working with Myth would be a full-time job.
> 
> Get it?


Oh don't worry, i get it, and i am sympathetic to the cause. However I
can't find a copy of the zap2it.com license.

I am not in North America, but man tv-grab_na_dd tells me: "You must
first register with Data Direct at: <http://labs.zap2it.com>

       You'll need to provide the XMLTV certificate code "

Or are the commercial operators registering for zap2it then preloading
the registrations into their boxes?

-- 
Nick Rout



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